In a land lease community, you own the home but lease the land where the home sits from the community operator. You pay rent for the right to occupy the site with a manufactured home or a moveable dwelling. Even when a community has a rule that residents must be over a certain age to live there, it is not a retirement village.

There are close to 500 land lease communities in New South Wales, accommodating about 34,000 residents. They offer a variety of services, facilities and financial arrangements. Some cater only to permanent home owners. Others have a mixture of tourists, tenants and long-term casual occupants. There are also different types of operators within the industry, ranging from large corporations to small family businesses.

Register of land lease communities

The residential land lease communities register lists all land lease communities registered with NSW Fair Trading. Prospective residents can use it to search for specific communities or to identify communities in a certain post code or local government area. The register also records any disciplinary or enforcement action taken against a community operator by NSW Fair Trading.

Go to the accommodation registers page to search for a land lease community. A profile of the land lease community industry has been put together from the details stored on the register. The profile contains a range of information, including the general location of land lease communities and the number of residents in each locality.

Forms and publications

To view and download the mandatory forms and publications for residential land lease communities, visit the Forms section of our website.

Residential land lease community operators

All land lease communities are covered by the Residential (Land Lease) Communities Act 2013. Previously they came under the Residential Parks Act 1998. To view and download the forms and mandatory publications for residential land lease communities, visit the Forms section of our website.

This section provides detailed information for those who operate a land lease community about the laws in NSW that apply to the beginning, middle and end of an agreement with a resident.

Note: Different laws apply to tenants who are renting a home from the operator or another person in a land lease community

Register of land lease communities

The residential land lease communities register lists all land lease communities registered with NSW Fair Trading. The register records any disciplinary or enforcement action taken by NSW Fair Trading against a community operator. Prospective residents can use the register to search for specific communities or to identify communities in a certain post code or local government area.

This section contains detailed information for prospective home owners about the steps, costs and financial arrangement options you need to know about before committing to move into a land lease community: